The short answer for these models
Work out whether the water is inside the cabinet or under it before anything else, because the two have different causes and different fixes. Inside is the drain; underneath is the tray, the levelling or, rarely, a supply line. The BD models take the same faults in a different order: a plumbed cabinet has a second source of water and a second thing to fail, and a page that ignores which one you have sends you looking in the wrong place, and the water-path checks therefore come before anything else.
What you observe
- The BD form you own, which changes what the rest of this list means — Check the back for a supply line. Fitted, and a leak has two possible sources; absent, and there is only one.
- Ice building in the base of the compartment — A sheet of ice across the floor of the compartment, which is the same blocked drain caught a week earlier.
- Condensation running down the inside walls — Sweating walls are an air-leak symptom, and the water is only the evidence.
- NEAR MISS — the cabinet is also warm — Then the water is a consequence of a cooling fault, and the page about a unit that will not cool comes first.
Causes, most likely first on this family
- A cracked, displaced or overflowing drip tray — It ranks here because rear and centre puddles usually start at the tray, and because looking at it costs nothing. It is placed first on the BD models rather than where the brand-level page puts it, because the form of the unit decides how much this can explain — which makes the water-path checks the checks with the most to say.
- The supply line, the fill valve or an internal joint — Last, and only on plumbed units: a genuine water-supply leak is rare and it is continuous rather than cyclical.
Check in this order, and why
- First — find the drain hole and test it — It sits at the lowest point of the cold compartment, usually behind or under the bottom shelf. Pour a little warm water in and watch whether it goes.
- Second — shut the door on a strip of paper — Run a paper strip round the whole door. Warm humid air is the raw material of every drop you are mopping up. On these models this is the step the construction changes: what you found at the step above decides how much weight to give what you find here.
Before you open anything
Safety
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before removing any panel. A capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. Water and electricity share this cabinet: dry the floor before you kneel and never work on a live machine while standing in a puddle. Nothing rigid goes into a drain hole, because the tubing at the far end of it punctures easily.
Where the owner job ends
The owner half of this ends at the drain and the connections. Anything that needs a panel off, or that turns out to be the evaporator tray or the valve, is a visit. Say where the water first appears and when — during a cycle, after a defrost, or all the time — because that decides where the technician starts.
The other symptoms covered for this family
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
